Volatiles (essences) are lost in the processing of agricultural products and particularly in the processing and drying of products, such as fruits and vegetables.
The present invention has as a first aspect the recovery of the volatiles from the surface of agricultural products. The smell of a fresh apple, for instance, is a small part of the total apple aroma. The surface aroma is a specific part of the total aroma and occurs no place else in the apple. When solid food products, such as peeled, cored, sliced apples are dried, the sliced apples oxidize and become brown. While the apple slices are drying, the slices give off steam or water vapor that contains water and volatiles. A process of the present invention separates the steam into volatiles and distilled water. The volatiles from dehydration are combined with the volatiles recovered from the surface of the apple to give complete apple essence (total volatiles). The volatiles may also be blended with the distilled water to yield different levels of essence-flavored distilled water. The volatiles may be sold separately as a commercial product.
The conventional dehydration process changes the composition of foods, usually to the detriment of the food quality. Dried fruits and vegetables become brown, flavorless and unappetizing. To avoid the oxidized, flavorless characteristics caused by the drying process, a pretreatment blanching (hot water or steam) or a gaseous (sulfur dioxide) or sulfite solution or anti-oxidant dip and/or soak (ascorbic acid) is used singularly or in combination. The best of these alternatives is unsatisfactory. Blanching whitens and softens the texture of fruits and vegetables. Sulfur dioxide and sulfites cause a product to bleach, and give an unnatural color, giving a sulfite taste, not a natural taste, and change the nutritional value of the product as well as introducing a potentially dangerous allergic presence in terms of the sulfite.
Anti-oxidants, such as ascorbic acid, provide fruits and vegetables with short-term effectiveness and resistance to browning and product degradation. The anti-oxidants are expensive in relation to the other processes. A product such as apple slices with these pretreatments will produce natural volatiles except when the apples are treated with sulfur dioxide or sulfites. Apples so treated tend to have sulfite-contaminated essence and cannot be used directly in food products.
The present invention includes a vacuum process which is an improvement over the above-mentioned pretreatment options (blanching, sulfur dioxide, sulfite, anti-oxidant dips and/or soaks). When water solutions of anti-oxidants and/or sulfites are used to submerge and subject the food product to vacuum, air is removed from the food product cells and replaced with a water solution and its ingredients. Ingredients placed in the cells are more effective than ingredients on the outside of the cells. With the vacuum process, the blanching, sulfur dioxide, sulfites and anti-oxidants may be modified and used in more effective combinations.
By use of the vacuum solution of the present invention containing selective ingredients, improved and new products become possible. A product termed dehydro-canned is dehydrated to one-half its fresh weight and canned (pasteurized). With apple slices, the only previous way to dry to one-half dryness was to pretreat with sulfur dioxide or sulfite solution. The problem was that the sulfite remaining in the apple attacked the inside of the can and blackened the apple.
The process of this invention uses anti-oxidants and selected ingredients in place of sulfites. The dehydrated apple slices are natural in color, flavor and texture and have no sulfite to attack the can. The dehydro-canned apple slices enable the equivalent of two cans of fresh apple slices to be canned as one can.
Agricultural products vary in quality. Some products such as apples and carrots lack sweetness, flavor, color, texture and general quality. By placing sugar or an artificial sweetening agent in the vacuum solution, the sweetening agent is placed inside the cell and sweetens the product. Natural or artificial flavors and/or colors can be added to the solution. A texture firming agent, such as calcium chloride, and a chelating agent such as EDTA, is used to protect, promote and preserve color. Previously fruits and vegetables were dehydrated without enhancement. Unsweet, fresh apples become unsweet, dehydrated apples. The present invention improves the quality of the fresh agricultural products.
The essence recovery, distilled water recovery systems of the present invention also apply to commercial evaporators and juice concentration equipment. The present procedure used in these processes is (1) to bring the liquid juice to a boil, (2) to collect the first portion of the boiled steam which contains the volatiles in a highly water diluted form and to fractionate the diluted volatiles to a less water-diluted form (about 99.9% water-0.1% volatiles) for commercial use, and (3) to discard the steam generated after the portion with the volatiles is removed.
The present invention extends step 2 of the prior art process mentioned above. After the completion of fractionation to approximately 99.9% water and 0.1% volatiles, the mixture is brought to a boil and the water-volatiles vapor passed through an adsorbent, such as charcoal, where the volatiles are removed and the steam cooled to become natural organic derived charcoal-filtered distilled water. The charcoal-filtered distilled water and/or the portion of the steam that does not contain volatiles may be used as a natural drink or manufacturing base for beverages, water packed foods and substitution for non-organic natural water in the food and cosmetic manufacturing process. The manufactured distilled water may also be treated with acid, such as sulfuric and separated into hydrogen and oxygen gases by electrolysis. Hydrogen is used for ion exchange regeneration. Oxygen is used for treatment of organic biodegradable foods. The gases have established commercial markets.
Frozen fruits and vegetables that have been subjected to pretreatment for subsequent dehydration with essence and distilled water recovery may be processed. Irradiated agricultural products may be pretreated for dehydration with essence and distilled water recovery. Peeled, cored, pitted fruits and vegetables may be pretreated, pureed and dried with essence and distilled water recovery.
Present and historical practice for drying agricultural products has been to use the minimum amount of water since any added water must be evaporated from the product during the drying process. Drying costs are frequently more than half the cost of processing. The addition of water even by vacuum would seem to defy the established logic except that my invention increases the profitability of the operation by reclaiming the previously lost valuable volatiles and distilled water, eliminates problems caused by sulfites, and makes possible new and improved products.